London centre stage for Live 8

More than 150,000 people are expected to attend the Live8 concert which is aimed to coincide with the G8 summit of world leaders in Gleneagles. Four other free live shows will be take place simultaneously in Paris, Philadelphia, Rome and Berlin on 2 July. It is estimated that there will be one million people attending, two billion people watching on TV and one billion listening on radio.

It is being billed as "one concert across two continents in five cities with 100 rock stars" and has been organised by Live Aid founders Bob Geldof and Midge Ure as part of a campaign to force the world's richest nations to relieve poverty in the third world.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell today pledged to expand the capacity of the Hyde Park site by 50 per cent, saying: "The Government is 100 per cent behind Live8. We want it to be the biggest and best open-air concert that the capital has ever seen."

Tickets will be available via a lottery system, which is expected to open next week. The aim is not to raise cash through public donations, as with Live Aid in 1985, but to place international pressure on rich countries as part of the Make Poverty History campaign.

U2, Sting and Oasis are also on the Hyde Park bill and Mariah Carey, OutKast, Mary J Blige and Linkin Park are expected to appear in the US.

Geldof said Britain had a unique opportunity "to do something unparalleled... to tilt the world a little bit on its axis in favour of the poor".

Geldof said he had been reluctant to attempt to emulate Live Aid because he "couldn't see how anything could possibly be better than that glorious day 20 years ago, almost perfect in what it achieved".

He said he had been persuaded to do it, particularly by U2 singer Bono and the writer and film- maker Richard Curtis, co-founder of the Make Poverty History Campaign.

Apart from Hyde Park, Geldof said the other venues would include the Eiffel Tower, Berlin's Brandenburg Gate and the Circus Maximus in Rome. There are also plans for concerts in the other G8 capitals.

Curtis said that "in terms of the global scale of finances (solving the issue of Third World debt) is a tiny amount of money".

He added: "It is an astonishing crisis. Seventy million people are dead in Africa which is many more than died in the Holocaust in the course of the war.

"We have our own private Holocaust going on. As a result of the opportunity that is coming up because of G8 there is an enormous movement growing across the world.

"The very simple task is for 100 per cent cancellation of unpayable debt from the poorest countries, doubling of aid and serious dramatic progress on trade justice."

Other stars expected to be confirmed on the Hyde Park bill are Robbie Williams, Duran Duran, Razorlight, Annie Lennox and Joss Stone.

Others in the frame include Pink Floyd, Coldplay and Usher.

Jonathan Ross will present the London show and Radio DJ Jo Whiley will host the backstage coverage.

Geldof has reportedly asked the world's most prominent figures, including the Pope, the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela to address crowds at the events in person or via satellite link-up.

All UK commercial radio stations have agreed to broadcast the show together, in a similar deal to the UK Radio Aid event earlier this year,

which was organised to raise cash for the victims of the tsunami disaster. Giant screens will be put up across some 20 UK cities and towns for those who cannot get entry to the live event.

Meanwhile, Geldof is calling for a million people to descend on Edinburgh for a mass march to coincide with the G8 summit. He wants them to go there directly from the Live8 concert. Hyde Park traditionally has ticketed space for only 100,000 people.

The new capacity boost makes Live 8 the biggest official live music event ever on site. It is beaten only by the legendary Rolling Stones gig in Hyde Park in 1969 when 500,000 fans turned up - but they were mostly without tickets.

BBC1 bosses are set to shelve coverage of the Wimbledon ladies' final after Geldof convinced them to screen the Live8 concert instead. The match will be on BBC2 instead.